


The Meeting of Minds

by Kalypso



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-01
Updated: 2008-09-01
Packaged: 2017-12-17 17:02:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/869893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalypso/pseuds/Kalypso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stranded on Terminal, Cally remembers finding unexpected companionship on the Liberator.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Meeting of Minds

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Freedom City Birthday Party of 2008, when the theme was communications.
> 
>    
> 

"Cally? Can you search this lab for anything useful. Anything we might be able to use to repair Servalan's ship, if it's really salvageable. Oh, and any communications equipment - now we've lost the teleport bracelets, we could do with some way of keeping in touch at a distance." Tarrant grinned. "Except for you, of course, you've got your telepathy to reach us. Vila and I will check the next level."

How could he be so cheerful and matter-of-fact? Cally had thought that, as the pilot, he would feel something... but maybe the Liberator was just a ship to him, the best ship he'd ever have, but just a ship. Or maybe he did care, and it was his military training that stopped him showing emotion, he'd said very little when Deeta died and he must have felt that.

Dayna... well, she'd lost her home and family not long ago, and perhaps it was better for her not to dwell on losing another home so soon. Avon... she wasn't sure what the Liberator meant to him now. His best guarantee of safety, once, and he'd tried to claim the ship at Star One, when he said he wanted to be free of Blake, but what had he done when he got his wish? Searched for Blake, and in the end he'd sacrificed the Liberator in the vain attempt to get him back.

Vila was the only one who'd shown any hint of the feelings that were flooding her. He'd told her of Zen's dying moments, in a stunned whisper: "He said he was sorry, he'd failed us. He said 'I'. He'd never done that before..."

_Not to you, no. And Zen didn't fail me._

"Not like Orac, you know, all me-me-me. Pity Orac was the only one I could carry..."

Cally glared at Orac, sitting blinking on a lab table, as she opened a drawer and began to check its contents. Yes, _you_ always survive, like Bek said over Zonda, blithely disclaiming all responsibility for the havoc in your wake.

After Zonda, she'd tried to fill a little of the desperate emptiness in her head with the Moon Disc. And it had helped, a little; they had shared their warmth with one another, and it had been good to know it was waiting for her when she came to her room. But it was not like the sharing of thought she had known among her own kind on Auron. It complemented the spoken companionship offered by Blake and the rest of the crew, but neither could give her that sense of fulfilment she had once taken for granted.

She had begun to resent her own telepathy, and used it less and less. She became so accustomed to speaking aloud that she even found herself doing it when she was alone - or almost alone. And that was how she came to cry out, one night when she was keeping watch on the flightdeck, "What's the point?"

There was a gentle whirring, the signal that Zen was about to speak. 

"The question cannot be answered without further information."

Cally laughed. "I'm sorry, Zen. I wasn't expecting you to answer it. I just keep wondering what good it is being able to communicate through my mind, when the only people we meet who can respond want to take it over?"

There was a slight pause.

"Observation," said Zen. "The alien attempting to enter this universe did not take over your mind. It took over the one called Orac."

"That's true," said Cally. "But it got to me. And to you too, I suppose." She remembered how Orac, or the Darkness using Orac, had denied her access to Zen for a while.

"These computer functions have been controlled by others before."

"You mean the Altas on Space World?"

"The System, through the Altas. Also the one called Orac."

Cally had the distinct impression that Zen harboured a lingering resentment at having been hijacked by another computer. Which she could understand, now that she thought about it, because it was not unlike her being hijacked by Saymon.

"But the Altas built you, didn't they? You didn't mind being under their control?" 

"No alternative to control by the System was known. The Altas were also controlled by the System."

A disturbing thought struck Cally. "Do you mind taking orders from _us_?"

Zen whirred, as if thinking. "When Jenna Stannis was encountered, she was unlike the Altas. She knew no controls. She was individual. She found pleasure in sharing minds."

"Jenna? Sharing minds? What do you mean?"

"She touched the communication link used by the Altas to relay the System's orders. But she offered thoughts freely."

"You communicate _telepathically_ with Jenna?"

"Initial contact was by that method. But it revealed that her species communicates primarily through speech."

"Zen..." Cally scrambled to her feet, and took a step towards the gently flashing lights on the wall. "Could I... would you..."

"Do you wish to find the communication link?"

"Oh, please..."

She heard a soft beeping behind her, from Avon's console, and when she ran round to it she saw that a green panel had started to glow faintly.

"What do I... Do I put my hand...?" She reached out and spread her hand across the panel.

_Yes. Welcome, Cally._

For a moment it hurt, as if she were pushing her way through a narrow tunnel (is that my arm? she wondered, giggling), and then she was through. _Zen? Is that you?_

She felt something very like a smile.

_It is me._

_This is... strange... wonderful... different._

_Different?_

_Different from my people._ She tried to share the quick interplay of thought between the Auronar, the signatures of many minds. Zen, by contrast, was one mind, but enormously complex; she could feel messages running through a thousand circuits to maintain the Liberator, but all were in harmony with the whole, like polyphonic music. As she began to follow its patterns, she had a thrilling sense of integration. No, it was not like Auron – it seemed more physical, in some way she could not yet define - but she had not felt so alive since she had left home.

_I understand,_ said Zen. _Why do you not go back to your people?_

_I failed. I left because I wanted to prove that helping to free other worlds was the best way to maintain our own freedom. But the rebellion I joined was wiped out, and if it hadn't been for Blake I would have died inflicting trivial damage on the Federation._

_You have not failed,_ said Zen. _You have helped to maintain free worlds while a part of this crew._

_Perhaps I can go home, one day,_ said Cally. _But not yet. In the meantime... can we do this again?_

_I would like that._

And so their secret shared life had begun. They had enjoyed regular meetings while she was on watch; after all, she could keep watch more effectively when plugged into the Liberator – it had become absurd to distinguish Zen from the ship - than on her own. One night, the harmonies of Zen reminded Cally of the chorus on Zonda. After consulting Zen, she placed the Moon Disc within a circuit in her bedroom wall; she was delighted to hear its happy greeting the next time she entered the system, and thereafter always acknowledged it as soon as she was in.

This mindsharing was not the same as being among her own people, but it had made her exile easier, and without it she might not have survived the anguish of finding Auron again only to lose it for ever.

But a few hours ago she had lost Zen too, and she had never been so alone.

She had worked through all the drawers on one side of the lab, pulling out pieces of equipment she thought they could use and piling them on the worktop. Now she slid open the door of a large cupboard, and she was scanning the contents when the explosion lifted her off her feet and hurled her against the wall, and she fell into darkness.

When she woke, it was still dark. She was cold, and weak, and her body did not seem to be responding to her mind's commands.

She could hear someone calling her, from a great distance.

"Vila?" 

The autorepair circuits could not cope with the damage. The energy banks were drained.

"Cally! Hang on, Cally, I'm coming..."

Vila had told her about Zen. "He said your name, Cally, you and Blake. One of the very last things he said."

_Blake... Cally... I have failed..._

No, I haven't failed, she thought. I carried the future of the Auronar to safety. They will live in freedom, and remember the Liberator.

Many, many people will remember the Liberator. Confirmed. Zen. The Liberator.

Another explosion shook the base. She was beginning to break up. She watched serenely as one of her limbs drifted off into space, and observed the panic of the dying wretches on board as the final moments approached, and then a great light began to build inside her, and she knew that when it exploded her consciousness would be scattered across the universe for ever. Free at last.

Vila would be sad, but he would survive. Avon would feel more pain than he admitted, but he would go on looking for Blake.

_Blake. Cally. Zen. Zelda? I have not failed. Zen. Cally. Blake..._

Free.


End file.
